Lake Winds Energy Park might be compared to a brand-spanking-new car: Its owners are getting to know it, doing scheduled maintenance and finding bugs that showed up when the rubber hit the road.

The new car analogy was suggested by Dennis Marvin, Consumers Energy spokesman, to describe why not all 56 of the turbines in the 100 megawatt wind farm in Riverton and Summit townships that began commercial operations Thursday are spinning.

“From an operational standpoint not every turbine is going to be running every day,” he said. “There will always be turbines down for maintenance.”

And being new, issues are still being resolved.

“It’s just like buying a new car, not everything is going to work like it is supposed to,” Marvin said of the launch of the $250 million Lake Winds Energy Park that took about a year to construct once approved and upwards of five years for Consumers to bring to reality from its initial planning. “You hope they will work as wanted, but they don’t always,” he said of the park’s turbines.

A story in Tuesday’s Ludington Daily News explores the issue and a bit about of how the park’s power is marketed through the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc. (MISO) wholesale electric cooperative.

For the complete story see Tuesday’s Ludington Daily News available online in the eEdition or at the newsstands. Call 845-5183 to subscribe.

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.